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What’s the Difference Between a Dedicated Server, VPS, and Shared Hosting?

A lot goes into creating a successful website. There are the aspects that seem immediate and obvious. Having your content, calls to action, functional payment systems, and all of the other day to day customer facing assets are at the top of your list. But, what about your hosting environment? Is it up to the task of supporting your specific needs consistently with no lags in performance? If you’re unsure of the answer to that question, then it’s time to learn a bit more about what exactly you’re paying for every month when selecting your hosting plan. Unfortunately, one size does not fit all when it comes to hosting a site. This provides an added layer of decision-making when first getting your site off the ground, but once an initial decision is made, you shouldn’t have to worry about it again. That is, unless you’re forced to migrate after expanding due to your success. With the help of this guide, you should be able to make the right decision the first time and then not have to worry too much about your hosting again.

The three main types of hosting plans consist of shared hosting, VPS, and a dedicated server. Let’s break these three categories down.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is what one can consider a “starter kit” or something similar. Basically, many people cut their teeth putting up a site using a cheap shared hosting plan, but ultimately move on because shared hosting is so limited. If you’re planning on running an ecommerce site, don’t even look at shared hosting. Ecommerce sites are much too resource hungry and activity fluctuates too often. You’ll quickly hit the wall. Shared hosting is the slowest hosting solution because you’re sharing a finite pool of resources with every other account on the server. To put it simply, if your neighbor is seeing spikes in traffic or is doing something that requires a lot of bandwidth, you could feel the pain and experience slowdown.

That’s not to say no one should use shared hosting. It exists and is popular in its own right for a reason. Not everyone has an involved website that needs a high spec’d server. For a fairly static site that consists of a few pages, shared hosting would work fine. However, if you’re looking to do a WordPress installation or any other kind of site that has daily professional use, the following two options are probably a better choice for you.

VPS

Virtual private servers are a great middle of the road option that will probably meet the needs of most people that aren’t at either extreme of the resource hungry scale (static sites and large ecommerce ones). With a VPS, you’re no longer sharing a limited allotment of resources with every other person who is being hosted on the physical server you happen to be on. To be clear, there are other accounts on the machine, but each account has guaranteed resources. So, if the situation mentioned earlier happens (neighbor sees a spike in activity) you won’t suffer any negative effects because only your site’s activity will affect the performance of your VPS. A Cloud VPS can also offer some creative solutions to problems such as needing a desktop environment to remote into so you can work from anywhere or as a place to run specialized software.

Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is the most robust and powerful hosting solution you can opt for generally. If shared hosting is like an apartment in a six story complex, a dedicated server is your own house in the suburbs. To continue that analogy, it’s also the most expensive option. But don’t let that dissuade you from opting for a dedicated server if your needs call for one. Ecommerce sites with many products and high traffic would benefit greatly from being on a dedicated server. After all, it’s been documented that site speed plays a big part in a site’s success and conversion rate. It’s not just speed that you need to keep in mind either. If a hosting solution isn’t up to the task of powering your site, you can go offline or at a certain point visitors won’t be able to load the site due to overload.

Conclusion

Got all of that? It’s a lot of information and you still might have questions about what kind of plan it is, exactly, that you need to ensure your site operates at a satisfactory level on a consistent basis. After all, slow speeds and downtime cost you money. That’s why this decision is so important. At JaguarPC, we’ve been helping business owners and independent contractors set up high performing sites for years. Contact us today and we’ll help you make the right choice for your business’ hosting.

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The right hosting plan can make all of the difference when it comes to building an online platform for your business. Secure, managed e-commerce website hosting services are often perfect solutions for business owners who are looking to get a stronger foothold in their industry. Hosting with minimal downtime is an important tool in the online business owner’s arsenal. Reliable providers offer an assortment of managed services, which give website owners the freedom to focus on other important business-related tasks.
Greater Reliability and Resources
If your company is growing, you need a hosting solution that won't hinder your progress. Many online businesses make the mistake of continuing to rely on shared hosting, even after they've expanded their online presence. While shared hosting is reliable enough for small startups, it's usually problematic for expanding e-commerce businesses. Sharing resources with innumerable other users often creates problems with uptime, as well as security. Through JaguarPC, you can purchase the ideal hosting plan for your growing company, such as dedicated, hybrid, VPS, or cloud hosting.
Managed Hosting Services
Many hosting providers offer different levels of managed services, which are ideal for busy e-commerce website owners. Instead of having to manage hardware and software, business owners often find it easier to rely on experienced hosts to do it for them. E-commerce website hosting doesn’t have to be complicated. Whether you’re interested in semi-managed, managed, or managed plus, you’ll enjoy dependable services without the headaches of manual administration. You’ll have the freedom to scale resources as necessary, without having to make any on-site configurations.
Consistent Uptime
Without reliable uptime, enhancing and growing a company is more difficult. The world of e-commerce is highly competitive, and it’s important to keep up with other businesses in your field. Companies are always on the lookout for new ways to get ahead of the competition. One of the best ways to boost credibility and exposure and get in favor with potential customers is by delivering consistent uptime. Internet users typically give websites only a few seconds to load before they click away and search for another similar site. If your hosting services leave much to be desired in terms of uptime, you’ll lose profitable opportunities.

I see it happen sometimes when a service fails on a server such as email and clients, rightfully so, freak out to say the least. "HEELLLPPP, Im about to lose a $1million deal becuase my email is down". Sound funny? Not to that guy! Ok so your asking who does a $1MM deal via email, well I don't know how true that is and really don't beleive that is anything short of extreme exageration but I have heard before. The first thought that comes to mind is, who does a $1MM deal from a $10 hosting account? Well the fact is that jsut becuase you aren't closing some big deal via doesn't mean your email is not important. Protecting that mail and ensuring you and your recipient get it is also important. Heres a few things I can think of to help you keep the mail flowing without spending thousands on larger redundant clusters:
Setup an alternate account on another server as a backup and make sure your dns zeon files have multiple MX (mail) records with decreasing priorties. Whats all that really mean?
Lets say you have www.siteA.com with us on a server, lets call it Earth. Well one day Earth goes down due to hardware failure or just the mail service goes out due to some other problem. In this situation your mail would likely just bounce around until the server is back up and the server can receive it. In other cases it could be lost to the internet gremlins forever but in either case you won't be getting it anytime soon if ever.
What you could do to prevent this is setup a backup account on another server, lets call it Mars. Your dns zone file would have a second MX priority (dont worry, our techs know what this is even if you dont) which points to Mars.
Now when Earths mail server isnt accesible before the message gets returned its already been told by the dns server that this zeon (this domain name) has another mail server it can try. Now your mail will be routed to the Mars server where you can retreive it at your leisure. That email will not be sent again to Earth server, nor will it be lost to space. When Earth server starts listening and responding to requests aghain, your email will starting going to it again by default.
Give it a shoot, we can help you set this up so that $1MM account isnt lost and your peace of mind is secured by just one low cost shared account.

A question we often get asked is, "What is the difference between your VPS plans and your SDX (Semi-Dedicated) plans?"Semi-Dedicated
Our SDX plan is basically one shared hosting account on a powerful server. What's different compared to our standard shared hosting plan is that there far fewer accounts on our SDX servers. So you have more resources available to you. For example, if you have a fairly busy forum not suitable for regular shared hosting, you would want to purchase our Semi-Dedicated hosting plan.
SDX is not intended to be used to resell hosting since it is still a basic shared account. It's intended for those who still want a shared hosting environment that packs a bit more punch. Our SDX plans are also good for a video share website.
VPS
A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is sort of like having a dedicated server in terms of customization abilities but without the extra cost (because it's still a shared hosting environment). Our VPS plan offers full root or administrator access and you have full control over the settings and software on the server. Think of a VPS plan as having a partition on a large server.
You would have a choice of which OS (operating system) you wish to have installed. The choices are:

CentOS (most popular)

Debian

Fedora Core

Suse

Windows<

You can also choose which version of MySQL, PHP, mail, etc. you want installed. (You cannot do this with Semi-Dedicated.) In addition, you get the choice on which control panel you'd like to use to administer your VPS. The choices are:

cPanel

Direct Admin

Interworx

Plesk

SDX plans come with cPanel only.
A VPS account can be used to resell hosting if you desire. In a nutshell, VPS plans allow you to completely customize the Virtual Private Server to suit your hosting needs.
This is also discussed in the JaguarPC Forums in this thread: VPS vs Semi dedicated
Both are powerful hosting solutions and JaguarPC provides both options at very reasonable prices. Check out these current specials: